24 March, 2013

Great white shark attempts to kill divers - sent by Al-Qaeda...

Why not kick off the Shark Alley blog with one of the most
controversial videos from Gansbaai?

This video had 110 views on Friday and now at the time of posting has nearly 1 million! It's the Gangnam Style of white shark catastrophes! I can easily tell which company that cage belongs to – but does
it matter? Videos like this impact the
entire industry – from Gansbaai to Guadalupe – so finger pointing is neither
hither nor thither (although maybe someone should recalc those openings –
sheesh!). Amongst the general malarkey,
this incident has brought back one of my favourite failures of logic against
cage diving:

“…but if we were to drag impala heads on
ropes for lions to chase towards game drive vehicles there would be a huge
outcry, why is there not the same with sharks - its baiting pure and simple! “

Big 5 game lodges dig waterholes nearby their premises so that clients can
see wildlife, essentially chumming for lions, hippos, elephants etc. Is this so different? Also, I think it’s a tad naïve to pretend that
the loud landies clients chase around wildlife in aren’t serving as indirect
signals to nearby predators of prey abundance. EDIT: Crazed giraffe attacks vehicle - but don't worry, it was just elevated hormones that caused him to charge the nearest moving vehicle. Perhaps this shark was just trying to mate with the diver? It's disturbing how that is more 'acceptable'...

Think of all the incredible wildlife encounters you have ever
had – was there a lure of some sort involved?
Why do I never see anyone rally against bird-feeders? Perhaps there is
no huge outcry about shark baiting/luring/chumming because there is no research
that support these emotional arguments, in fact, quite the opposite!

The bottom line is, if you want to see wildlife – specifically sharks – within the
narrow-attention span of the tourism world, you have only two options; 1) lure
in your wildlife in areas of their abundance, or 2) keep them captive. I’d rather white sharks were kept wild with
the off-chance of freak accidents like this than the latter. Yes you could also sit for months nearby seal
colonies on the off-chance to see a white shark, but only a rare breed of
humans (called ‘researchers’) have that kind of patience.

So, what happened to this shark to possess it to lunge at the cage? Fuck knows, white shark behaviour is an
imperfect science because each individual animal will react uniquely to stimuli. I have seen a shark fully breach attack kelp,
I have had a shark ram my engine full speed out of no-where, I have had a shark
lunge at a shadow. They are not known
for their complex reasoning skills and their ‘bite first, ask questions later’
method makes them terribly efficient predators.
Before we started filling the ocean with non-organic things (like cages
and seal decoys) this was fool-proof shark logic. However, various media outlets have found the
natural explanation, the shark was most certainly trying to kill the divers inside – and sharks have fangs!

What I find most disturbing about this video is the reaction, or lack-thereof, of
the people/crew. No one attempts to help
the people in the cage (or the shark), and once the shark frees itself
(luckily) the people erupt in awesome hoots and hollers like that’s the best
shit ever. What kind of weird shark
culture is this?

We will keep our eyes out for this shark (i.e. one that has torn out gills - see the blood?) and hope that this calls for stronger cage-related regulations to be passed. The Marine Conservation Science Institute page (and their intelligent commenters) nailed it with this: